


First Born: Second Son

by Syntheticpalindromes



Series: First Born [2]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: John & Arthur are BROTHERS, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, but very lightly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:07:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22367641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syntheticpalindromes/pseuds/Syntheticpalindromes
Summary: When John was coming up for his thirteenth birthday, unfortunately for him and also for Arthur’s sanity, he contracted a fever. Running him hot one moment and cold the next, eyes shuddering behind his eyelids and maybe for a moment, Arthur was worried. If only for a moment. He was still scrawny and sickly looking. Like maybe he could be put down by the fever if it tried hard enough.~John Marston, if you were to ask Arthur, was never going to win any prizes for his smarts. Or wit. Or looks. Or probably anything else for that matter. However, if he did anything right in his so-called older brother's eyes; it was remind him that no matter what your family situation, the baby of the family always got what he wanted.OR: a tale of Dutch and Hosea attempting to quietly love each other, while their unruly sons attempted to cause them stress related deaths.
Relationships: Hosea Matthews/Dutch van der Linde
Series: First Born [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1603252
Comments: 10
Kudos: 107





	1. First

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this WILL be chaptered ive decided, but only like....3 chapters ig. also the rating will go up bc lbr, dutch and hosea fuck all the time. they got horny disease. just...not yet.
> 
> also john and arthur are 100% functioning as adoptive siblings in this i probably dont need to say it but dont assign shippy stuff to them in this fic. especially since john is like...a baby in the first chapter. 
> 
> and finally its not necessary to read the prologue to this but like...can if you want to!

When John was coming up for his thirteenth birthday, unfortunately for him and also for Arthur’s sanity, he contracted a fever. Running him hot one moment and cold the next, eyes shuddering behind his eyelids and maybe for a moment, Arthur was worried. If only for a moment. He was still scrawny and sickly looking. Like maybe he could be put down by the fever if it tried hard enough. 

Miss Grimshaw watched over him for the first few days, patting him down with a damp rag and forcing as much water down his gullet as the little scrap could take. Hosea hovering, unusually twitchy, just behind her. 

“That won’t be doing the boy any good, Hosea. Idling over my shoulder.” Susan snapped after fifteen minutes of Hosea wringing his hands to the left of her shoulder. Twisting in her chair to fix him with a look so permeating that it almost cut through where Arthur was poking at a fire all the way away from them in the centre of the little camp they had set up for the moment. 

Hosea stiffened, “Well. Will he die?”

Miss Grimshaw’s eyes rolled so hard Arthur thought they might pop right out of her head, “He’s sick, Mr Matthews. He’s not dying. He needs to rest and keep warm, perhaps sweat it out.” She pressed the back of her soft, little hand to John’s sweaty brow. The boy wincing in his fitful sleep, “He’ll live though.” 

Arthur wouldn’t admit it, but he was mighty jealous of the massive sigh of relief Hosea let out. Wondering if the man ever breathed like that over his own safety. 

Silly thought, really.

~

Early the next morning, horses huffing hot breaths, Arthur and Dutch rode out across the grasslands near the camp. Arthur’s horse flanking Dutch’s, his hat pulled low on his brow as he wriggled his coat closer to him, trying to keep the morning, dewy, chill out. Watching as Dutch pulled a newly whittled bow out of his packings.

“There’s deer, down in the valley, to the right. Don’t use the gun, it’ll startle them.”

“I _know_ , Dutch.”

“I know you do, son.” Dutch’s grin was irritating. 

By the time they had two large doe’s tucked onto the backs of their horses, Arthur was in a complete stew of his own design. Because, in his reasoning, everything was fine until that little brat had turned up. He ate like he never was full a day in his life and he liked to look at Arthur’s journal when he thought he wasn’t looking. He was a pestilence. He was greedy and useless, and Arthur was sick and tired of him being babied. 

He struck it up with Dutch, “Now, why have you got me out here at the crack of dawn, hunting for the little rat?”

Dutch’s eyes went wide for a moment, then he cackled out a blustering laugh, “Are you talking about John?”

“Well, who else would I be talking about?” Arthur was incensed. 

“Jealousy is not becoming of you, son.”

“I ain’t jealous.” Arthur hitched himself onto his horse, frown as deep as the Grand Canyon, “I’m just wondering what you and Hosea see in him.”

Dutch was back atop his horse too, “Well, for one thing, what he saw in you. Now stop being sour, you’re going to help Miss Grimshaw make dinner for your little brother whether you like it or not. And, Arthur?”

“What, Dutch?”

“Try not to be too much of a fool.”

~

By the third day, the fever had mostly broken, John back and sitting up and speaking. Much to Arthur’s dismay, of course. Wrapped in a heaping of bedding furs and drinking fresh water from Hosea’s canteen. Miss Grimshaw checking him less and less, content to let him sit and entertain himself. No longer sweating and restless, just sniffly and weary.

It had been Hosea’s idea to let him sleep in their covered tent for a while during the day, just to keep him out of the breeze. John complaining that his entire body ached, and it was Hosea and Dutch that had the softest bedrolls, so he was ushered into their tent and left to nap for a few hours by himself. 

Fine by Arthur, that kept him out of the way.

That was where Hosea found him, still, at eleven in the evening as he was retreating to bed himself. Seemingly having slept through the latter half of the day.

“My gosh, child. You are still unwell.”

He sat himself down, letting John stay sound asleep next to him as he leafed through a few pages of his book. The boy snuffling in his sleep slightly, Hosea’s eyes darting from him to the stack of papers that he had been using for John’s schooling as he tidied them into a pile and tucked them away for use another week when he wasn’t quite so green around the gills still. Something paternal cropping up in the pit of his belly, much like when they had found Arthur, whenever John would snore in that way that you might when you couldn’t quite get the air through the stuffiness of your nose. 

By midnight, Dutch was joining them, looking ragged around the edges like perhaps he’d been doing something interesting. 

“Come, lie down.” Hosea gestured. 

“Oh, I intend to, don’t you worry.” Slipping his boots off and taking off the delicate pieces of his outfits, jewelry, pocketwatch. Getting himself comfortable enough to sidle up next to Hosea on the bedroll, who was pushing a stringy, fever sweat limp, piece of hair out of John’s face. Dutch snorting at that. 

“My, you would have made a wonderful mother in another life.”

“Oh, I think perhaps I’m enough of one in this.”

The talking jostled John awake enough to crack his eyes slightly at the sound. 

“I would be honoured to have you. This life. The next. Anywhere you’d have me.”

Hosea stifled a small, almost polite, laugh, “As much as I’d like for you to, you can’t have me now, unfortunately. Not in front of the boy.”

Dutch mock sighed, “To be a parent!”

“You’re a fool.”

“Perhaps.”

Now, John had encountered a lot of things in his short lifetime so far. And, it wasn’t so much that he was frightened or disgusted by the sight of two outlaws (known to have murdered and stolen and generally done things not too well liked by the law) kissing gently in their own tent. However, it certainly was an odd thing to wake up to when you had only just gotten over the idea that maybe you were dying of some sort of deadly disease. 

Maybe they were practising for when they had wives. As to not disappoint them when they canoodled.

Dutch cupped the back of Hosea’s neck, pressing another kiss to his forehead.

It was then, John decided that he was having the most vivid fever he had ever experienced. 

He shuffled himself into an upright sitting position, startling both grown men who pulled apart and eyed him, 

“You alright there, John?”

His voice, tinny to his own ears, sounded distant as he answered, 

“Going back to my own tent!”

And so he did.

~

It was only when he was eating a piping bowl of oatmeal, that John remembered what he’d seen last night. His spoon threatening to slip from his still clammy hands as Dutch and Hosea marched past, deep in an argument with each other over who was to ride into the nearby town for supplies. Because whoever rode out, would foot the bill.

John jolted as Arthur plonked himself down next to him, scooping some oatmeal for himself into a bowl and nudging John’s shoulder with his own, 

“You alright there, kid? Look like you seen a ghost.”

John’s eyes filtered back and forth between Dutch and Hosea, and Arthur to the side of him. Brow furrowing as he said in the most sincere way that only children can, 

“Well, I swear I seen Dutch and Hosea...Doing things for married folk. So I was thinking that maybe they was practising for when they found themselves wives. Or something.”

Arthur’s laugh was almost deafening. 

John’s whole face slipped into a scowl as soon as he did, “I fucking knew you’d make fun! I knew you’d make fun a’me Arthur Morgan, you ass! You dumbass!” 

The arm that Arthur flung around John’s heaving shoulders kept him in place. Big, strapping twenty three year old weeping with laughter and shaking all over as he attempted to keep John from battering him with his tiny fists in a rage. 

“What’s so damn funny! Tell me now! You’re being unfair, Arthur. I maybe didn’t even see anything, I can’t tell. I was all fuzzy from being so damn sick. It’s not my fault.”

Arthur’s laughter didn’t subside, and as always, John went stomping off by himself in a fit of pure unadulterated, teenage anger.

If anyone were to ask though, that was perhaps the moment Arthur warmed to John a little.

~

Arthur found him, a few hours later, kicking rocks by the brook. Watching as the boy crouched down and poked a finger into the water, swirling it around the tiny minnows who seemed entirely unphased by his presence and darted around the digit. The sound of Arthur walking up on him causing his head to swing round, eyes puffy.

“You been crying?” Arthur asked, nonchalantly. 

“No. None’a your business if I have, anyway.”

“‘Spose not. You coming home now or what?”

John stood, hems of his pants wet from obviously splashing around in the water earlier and knees dirtied from doing god knows what. Arthur remembered what it was to be a young teenager though, and he wouldn’t put it past John rolling down a hill or something equally stupid. 

“You gonna make fun of me some more when we get back? For dreaming of Dutch and Hosea doing...Funny things?”

Now, there was a right and a wrong answer to a question such as that. The look in John’s eyes answered it for Arthur though, 

“No. I ain’t gonna poke fun. Come on. It’s not safe for a matchstick like you to be by yourself. Don’t want you getting hurt.” He stepped towards John, getting just close enough to ruffle his hair, “Plus, Miss Grimshaw just stoked some coals to heat some water for a bath. Seems like you need one.”

John’s eyes slit, glaring at Arthur for a moment, 

“That it? Not gonna call me a rat or nothing?”

Maybe Dutch and Hosea were onto something with this whole looking out for the kid thing. 

He set a look at John, patting his back, “No. Uh. I ain’t.”

John blinked, “Oh.”

~

The fever was most definitely gone by the time John had been bathed and practically scrubbed within an inch of his life by Miss Grimshaw. In the entire time he’d been living as part of the gang, he’d probably seen more baths than he had in his whole life up until that point. It almost felt like a luxury at that point. That didn’t stop him from hollering and whining when a bucket of tepid water was being dumped over his head as he sat in the tin bath.

“Your hair is filthy, Mr Marston. I keep my camp clean and that includes the men who live in it.” 

“You’re embarrassing me!” John sulked as he shook his hair out like a dog. 

“Oh, hush. Ain’t nothing I haven’t seen before. Unfortunately.” Miss Grimshaw added as she handed him a worn looking towelling cloth. 

Arthur huffed a laugh from over by the campfire, “You’re lucky, when I was your age, we didn’t have none of this fancy stuff like curtains to hang for your privacy. I used to have to wash in the stream or take my baths out in the open.” 

John grumbled all the same. 

Up until dinner time, that was. 

Food the great silencer of John Marston. 

“Hey.” Arthur knocked his boot against John’s, “You wanna sleep with me tonight?”

John’s nose wrinkled, “No!”

The noise that came out of Arthur could only be described as indignant shock, “I was only offering! You’ve been running so hot I thought maybe you might be getting cold in the night. Lord. I was only trying to be kind, Marston.”

~

Neither of them commented on the fact that as soon as night fell and the camp settled into its nightly routines, John shuffled his way into Arthur’s tent. Holey blanket stolen from God knows where, draped around his shoulders as he laid himself down next to Arthur. Wriggling around until he was comfortable and Arthur could fix an awkward hand on his arm. Not entirely practised at this whole older brother thing just yet.

“Sorry I laughed at you.”

John huffed, “You always laugh at me, what’s the difference.”

“I do not!” 

“You do. You tell Dutch that I’m stupid.”

“Only sometimes…”

John shuffled until he could stare Arthur down, face screwed up into a picture of petulence, 

“Did I see what I saw?”

Arthur had no idea how to answer that. He wasn’t there. He knew what he knew but, Lord knows what John saw when he was in the fits of a fever that was making him loopy.

“I’m not you, so I can’t answer that. Just go to sleep. You’ll feel better and be over your fever entirely in the morning.”

John’s face smoothed out. Enough so that he even gave Arthur a tiny, waning smile. Something that Arthur didn’t see too often. 

It made him feel something strange. He couldn’t place it. 

Perhaps it was what you were supposed to feel towards your family. 

He didn’t know.

“Oh, and John?”

“Mhm?”

“Don’t be dreaming about me kissing Miss Grimshaw now.”

~

However, when Arthur awoke the next morning to a stuffy nose and the lingering feelings of a sore throat coming along, he promptly kicked John out of his tent and told him to go sleep with someone else. 


	2. Second

John was fifteen and finally, much to Arthur’s behest, allowed to run a proper job with them. 

Well, as proper a job as robbing a stagecoach running along a basically deserted stretch of dusty road could be. Risk low, reward slightly higher; which had set Dutch’s moustache twitching in that way it often did when he could almost feel the weight of a stack of bills in his hand. From what they could garner from speaking to people around the town they were staying close to, some sort of Viscount would be riding through. 

Hosea’s writing stopped, the soothing sound of the _scritch_ of a pen ceasing for a moment, “Viscount? That doesn’t seem all that low risk, Dutch.” His eyebrows sewing together as he cast a look at his partner, “Surely they’ll have...Protection of some kind. Something along those lines?” 

Dutch’s eyes lit up and Arthur and John shared a look between them of, _Dutch is going to be so smug for the rest of the evening._

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong, my dear friend.” He struck a match, lighting his pipe, the glow illuminating the pure joy of one-upping Hosea stretched across his shadowed face, “You see, this is a disgraced Viscount. And from what I have heard, he wasn’t particularly liked before all the bad business that got him into this position in the first place. And now, it seems, he is roaming around our great country with a fat pocket that he needs to be liberated of.”

“I wish you’d liberate me of this meeting.” Arthur grumbled.

Which in turn, set off John into a fit of undignified titters. 

Until Hosea interjected with, “Do you two wish to accompany us on this? Because if not, I will happily take your cut.”

“Sorry, Hosea.” 

“Sorry, sir.”

~

It’s decided that John will be used as a distraction, something he is vehemently irritated by. Arthur blames it on the fact he’s barely just come into adulthood and the slightest thing will set him off, which is saying a lot considering he was ornery and snappy even before he sidled away from boyhood rather ungracefully. Arthur had never seen a young man act so much like a brat in the space of a year or so, which was still incredibly amusing and noteworthy and he had written a lot of it in his journal. Ready for when John perhaps found a woman, then he could bring up the time he was fourteen and cried so hard that he almost make himself sick just because Arthur poked him in the chest too hard and asked him when the last time he’d washed that mop of hair atop his head.

“I can’t act, Hosea! You know I’m not good at it.” John said petulantly.

Arthur shifted in his seat, slowly sipping his coffee and flicking a cold finger to tap the gathering ash at the end of his cigarette off, “He’s got a point, remember when he was trying to pretend to be a starving orphan boy? The girl at the saloon looked like she’d never laughed harder. He’s useless, leave him here with Grimshaw to do the women's work.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Mr Morgan.” Susan called from where she was cleaning a pistol, skirt hiked up to her knees and curls of hair clustered daintily around her temples. 

Arthur’s face went red, “Apologies, Miss.”

Hosea rubbed a hand across his chin, looking between the boys and Dutch, “I don’t think there’s any other way, my boy. You’re the only one small enough that won’t cause too much confusion. If Arthur were to step into the road acting like he got bit by a snake the horses would probably bolt on account of the fact that he’s a hulking, shack-like creature.”

Arthur grunted in response, not pausing in his doodle of a petunia. 

John’s eyes went big, verging on wild, “So, just because I’m littler than him, that means I have to be making a fool of myself?”

“Not hard to do, Marston.” Arthur grinned. 

“I’ll beat your ass, Morgan.” John warned.

“ _Boys._ ” Dutch’s voice was stern, shooting right down the back of Arthur’s spine and making him sit up straight in the way that only a father figure could, “John you are doing the distracting and Arthur you are sticking them up, no more arguing, you are going to give me a darn headache.”

~

“This is humiliating, I don’t wanna do it...Hosea I-aw shit. Please! You gotta help me! Please, I was getting supplies for my Ma back at the ranch and a snake bit me!” John’s whinging little rant to Hosea was cut short as he had to throw himself out into the road to stop the stagecoach in its tracks. The plan going well so far as John writhed on the ground and clutched at an imaginary bite on his leg. Wailing and hollering and rolling around like a wild beast.

“Please, mister, you gotta help me. I’m dying!”

Arthur sniggered from his cover, “He’s over-selling it a bit, don’t you think.”

“Arthur, shush.” Dutch responded sharply. 

And as the drivers descended to help this poor ailing child, Arthur made himself known with a pistol in their faces and with Dutch ripping the Viscount, who seemed to be (as expected) sodden internally with alcohol even at that time of day, out of the carriage. Ready to be shaken free of his money. 

And shaken, they were.

~

Dutch slapped a large, warm hand across John’s back, jolting him forward where he was sat and almost spilling his bubbling bottle of beer across the legs of his pants,

“You did exceptionally well, my boy! Well done. We’ll be eating well for a while thanks to your theatrics.”

Arthur scoffed, “I was the one making sure neither of them two drivers went off shouting about a robbery…”

“You too, Arthur. You both did well. What useful sons to have.”

They sat by the open fire for a good, long while. Susan joining them and looking, with a shine in her eyes, over the stack of paper they’d lifted, as well as the bags of whatever valuable possessions they could nab, “There’s a fence nearby here, name of Flannerty who runs it. Nice enough man. Would be happy to take some of those jewels off us and turn them into something a little more able to buy with. We are in desperate need of new medicines, Mr Van Der Linde.”

Dutch nodded, head slow and soupy with the amount of whiskey he had drunk by that point, “Of course, Miss Grimshaw. Only the best for our little family here. I’ll ride out in the morning to him.”

Grimshaw smiled, knowingly, “Well, you certainly won’t be riding tonight in your state.” 

The laugh Hosea snuffled out was more genuine than Arthur had heard him laugh in weeks. 

Of course, being how they were, it didn’t take long for Dutch’s eyes to begin wandering. Creeping their way across the licking fire and to Hosea, a soft, stupid looking smile inching it’s way into his cheeks as he held a half empty whiskey bottle out to his partner, “Here’s to you, my dear.” The gesture sneaking a flush across Hosea’s cheekbones, something Arthur was sure he would pass off as the alcohol later. 

Despite many claiming it wasn’t the case, Arthur was not as foolish as it seemed, and in an instant of knowing; he offered Dutch his seat. The seat that was next to Hosea. 

Arthur was, deep down, a romantic after all. 

The difference was immediate. Dutch’s dancing, honeyed eyes softening as he pulled the box Hosea was sat atop closer to him. Hosea barking a laugh and attempting to pry off the searching hands that Dutch let loose on him, starting at his knees and moving their way up to his thighs. Grimshaw letting out one single sharp laugh, 

“I do believe that signals bed for me. Goodnight, gentlemen.” And took off to her tent. 

Once more, in John’s relatively short life, he found himself confounded with what was in front of him. 

The guard was down seemingly, Dutch’s mouth directly next to Hosea’s ear as John and Arthur tried not to stare too much from across the fire. Flames partially obscuring them, orange glow dappling their skin and crackling just in front of where Dutch was tenderly grasping Hosea’s hand in his. Gazing at him like he had never seen anything like him. Maybe he hadn’t.

Arthur cleared his throat, causing John to snap his head to look at him, “They do this sometimes.”

John’s mouth flapped open but no sound came out. 

Arthur continued, “Get some booze in them and Dutch gets acting like Hosea is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.”

John looked back to them, “I don’t think...that Dutch thinks Hosea is much of a woman.”

They were talking quietly into each other, tangled hands, voices low and heads ducked down together. Completely lost in their own world, not paying the two boys any mind. So, Arthur kept drinking and drawing, trying to distract his eyes from Dutch kissing on Hosea like nobody else was around. Stuff they’d usually only do in the confines of their own tent. Usually. The sounds of their mouths muffled by the sound of the fire, only interrupted by the sound of John’s hiccuping, having drank his fair share of beer for a teen. 

One of Dutch’s hands had crept to the back of Hosea’s head, twisting his hair around his fingers and holding him in place as he pressed their mouths together slowly and assuredly. John not wanting to meet their gazes as they pulled away from each other, however he did catch the way that Dutch’s mouth formed the words, “I love you.” His face growing hot and he gripped at Arthur’s sleeve suddenly, 

“Let’s leave them.”

Arthur snorted, good-heartedly, “Probably a good idea. They’re not gonna stop any time soon.”

~

“Do you care?”

Arthur’s eyebrows shot up. 

They were sat under the cover of Arthur’s wagon, not quite ready to join Grimshaw in sleep just yet. Arthur tucking a cigarette John’s way and chuckling low under his breath, “Do I care?” 

John bristled, “About them! About them...Doing them things.”

Arthur shrugged, sticking the lighter under his own cigarette and watching the paper fizzle, “Not really. Just the way they are. I think if we’re out here running jobs and stick-ups...Then maybe we ain’t in a place to judge what two men are doing.”

John’s eyes were calculative, searching Arthur’s face for some sort of marker that perhaps he was joking. 

He wasn’t.

“Do they love each other?” John asked, voice quiet. Even though no one would be able to hear them. 

“Deeply. In ways I can't even begin to imagine loving someone.” Arthur’s answer was blunt and strangely open. 

“Men can’t love one and another.”

“Well, they do!” Arthur snapped back, flicking the ash of his cigarette at John’s boots, “They do because I’ve seen how Dutch and Hosea are and have been for longer than you, boy. And I got to thinking, if these men had it in them to take me in. Keep me fed, taught to read, to take care of myself...If I’m not dying on the streets because of them, it’s not in my interest to doubt.” 

John was silent for a long while. His face thoughtful and young. Arthur forgetting how truly young he was sometimes. 

He spoke up, “They’ll be imprisoned if anyone finds out…”

Arthur answered through a cloud of his own cigarette smoke, “Then keep it to yourself and don’t go blabbing to anyone. Y’hear me? Do you want to be out for a hanging again because the two of them ain’t around?”

John shook his head.

“This stays between us then.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Arthur smiled slowly, “Anything else you want to know, then?”

John was entirely honest in his question of, “If you run with them, does that mean you and Grimshaw are inverts too?”

~

The fire was dimming to a crackle as Dutch cradled Hosea’s face once more,

“How lucky I am. Through all this, no establishment, large or small, could ever take you from me.”

“You are talking absolutely nonsense, Byron.” 

Dutch laughed loud and bright, “Oh, you’re still so quick.” He closed the gap between them and kissed Hosea till the older man was breathless and sliding his hand under the fabric of Dutch’s overcoat. Palming his ribs and pulling him closer, inhibitions completely forgotten now that the boys had retreated. 

Dutch’s back became acquainted with the grass to the side of them very quickly, Hosea situating himself in between his strong thighs and leaning down to kiss him once more. Thumb sliding to press into the curve of Dutch’s jaw, then up to press harder and open his mouth against his. Dutch acquiescing after a moment and letting Hosea do whatever he wanted with him. 

Despite being the ever knowing leader of their unit, Dutch often found himself bowing to Hosea. 

It was just the way it was.

A clipped moan leaving Dutch’s mouth as Hosea pressed their hips together, laughing nasally at the noise he managed to elicit from him. Drawing a gentle hand through the curls at the nape of his neck, smoothing their mouths together once more and biting at Dutch’s bottom lip until it was near bleeding. 

For a while, they stayed like that, grinding their hips together languidly. Dutch’s breath catching in the back of his throat every once in a while. Allowing Hosea to let up slightly. They shouldn’t allow themselves to dirty themselves while still clothed but the feeling they chased was enough to keep them going for perhaps longer than necessary. 

“We should get up. Susan would be excessively angry if we were to add to her already growing pile of laundry from the boys.” Dutch let his head fall back against the damp grass as he spoke. 

Hosea hummed in agreement, “You may be right.” Although, he did allow himself a moment to graze his teeth along the sharp line of Dutch’s jaw. Nipping him and dragging the flat of a palm across Dutch’s erection, strained against the front of his pants. Dutch’s back arching up in a delicate bow as he chased the sensation. The corners of Hosea's mouth snatching up as he barely contained his joy at being able to play the other man so well. 

"If you had asked very nicely, I may have put my mouth on you."

Dutch's eyes went wide, "Oh. May you?"

Hosea's hand pressed harder against Dutch's cock beneath his trousers, watching the way his eyes fluttered shut and he allowed himself to gasp as he felt out the shape of it. Cupping it reverently and sliding his palm up and down it as if it were exposed.

"Not right now, my love"

Dutch's hand gripped suddenly at Hosea's shoulder, clasping it hard and panting out,

“Does it make you happy, Hosea? To be so cruel?”

Hosea just smiled, “You think we should maybe be a little more cautious around the boy?”

Dutch leaned up on his elbows, “John? We needn’t. I’m sure Arthur has spoken to him.”

“Maybe we should frighten him a little, just in case.”

Dutch scoffed, “Don’t be such a fool, Hosea. He wouldn’t risk losing us.”

Hosea stood, slightly shaky on his drunken and heated legs, brushing off his pants and tidying himself up. Saying very matter of factly, “I can’t risk losing you.” 

“I feel the same, of course. You know that.”

~

Arthur bolstered his way in between Dutch and Hosea the next morning, grinning from ear to ear,

“How’s both your heads then fellers? Ready to ride out to that fence, Dutch?”

Dutch’s eyes were shut, his hands clasped around a mug of steaming hot coffee as he rolled around a thought in his head, speaking after a second of pause, “I think, Arthur, I may need to rest today. After yesterday’s work I am incredibly tired.” He cracked an eye open, “As is Hosea. We have a lot of planning to do for the next time we are forcibly moved some place else.” 

The other man patted Arthur’s thigh, looking just as hungover as Dutch but hiding it a bit better, “Why don’t you ride out and do it. Make friendly with the man, see if we can’t drum up some other business with him, hm?” 

Arthur’s shoulders went back as they often did when he was given something to do. 

They soon slumped as Hosea added,

“Oh and, take John with you.”


	3. Final

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only realised after writing this whole thing that 100% other members would have joined the gang in the span of years it covers but also i'm very stupid and i cannot parse time so let's just imagine for the sake of me not having to dig through the wikia that everyone just happened to join after this last chapter :)
> 
> also im so sorry but i wrote this is a haze of "I MUST FINISH THIS SO I CAN FINISH MY CHARLES/ARTHUR FIC" (which will be up soon), so any mistakes are my own bc i didnt proof read it properly
> 
> finally there is an instance where there is a use of the word "whore" in a semi sexual/semi funny?? context. just a heads up i guess!

Lord knows how they managed it but they stumbled onto a _house_ of all things. 

Well, more of a shack but with a bit of a tidy from Grimshaw and their two strapping (but whinging) sons, it was looking a bit less worse for wear than before they came upon it. 

The floors were swept and the cobwebs that dotted the windows and corners of the rooms were dusted away until Grimshaw had had enough of the lacklustre way the boys were working. Sending them off on errands in the nearby town to get them some food for the stay, knowing that although this seemed like a Godsend, it was entirely likely that they wouldn’t be staying there for particularly long. 

Dutch caught Arthur by the arm as he and John, who was now just a few weeks short of seventeen, made their way past him to the horses who were grazing out the front.

“Would you pick up some of them canned peaches if you can.”

Arthur smirked, “The ones Hosea likes?” 

Dutch’s mouth twitched, staving off a smile, “Yes. Exactly.” 

John hefted the hessian bag they often used for supplies a bit higher on his back, 

“What even was this place?” Nudging his chin towards the house. 

Dutch gave it a moment of thought, rubbing at his chin before answering slowly, 

“I think perhaps it was one of them places the British had built a few decades ago. Pompous son’s ‘a bitches probably thought of them as holiday homes. Chateaus and the such.” He snorted a brisk laugh, “Well, as they say my boys, an Englishman’s house is his castle.”

The boys just blinked at him. 

-

Hosea passed him on the stairs as Dutch descended them, thinking that perhaps he’d have a sit outside in the not quite blistering sunshine and read for a while. The older man smiled politely and said courteously, “Very kind of you to ask the boys to get me some peaches. Anyone would think you’re sweet on me.” 

Dutch feigned shock, “My dear Hosea! What a thought!” 

Hosea’s eyes went bright in the way they often did when he was _plotting_ something, “If your book can wait, perhaps you’d like to have a look upstairs with me?”

“I’ve done a cursory survey of the place, Hosea. Nobody but us and Susan out washing in the brook for miles, now the boys are off.” 

Hosea’s laugh was sudden, “You old fool, I meant that you should _join me._ Join me upstairs.” His hand snaking out to curl his fingers around Dutch’s wrist, “I’d be very happy if you were to.” 

-

Their clothes ended up bundled onto an oak chair that when they had arrived had been strewn across the floor, boots shucked to the side with the rest and in a fit of unbridled uncaring; their union suits had even been abandoned. A thin, raggedy blanket draped across them as a small barrier from the world as Dutch sat atop Hosea’s hips. 

His hands pressed down against the soft flesh of Hosea’s chest, just enough leverage to drag their hips together. Dutch already hard enough and leaking against both their bellies that Hosea had a smug smirk spread flush across his face, his own hands stroking up Dutch’s thighs. Almost petting through the thin dusting of hairs across them.

“Anything you’d like?” Hosea murmured, still sounding smug. 

Dutch didn’t respond verbally, just shook his head with his eyes still shut as he dipped and rode his hips against Hosea’s once more. Grinding himself against where Hosea’s cock was settled against his stomach, which much like Dutch’s, was wet at the tip and flushed red. He never particularly gave away that he was as close to coming as Dutch did, who despite being the appointed leader of their little band, much preferred being moved and pulled by the older man. 

Not that that was anyone’s business but his own. 

He swore, fingers tightening on Hosea’s chest as their erections slid together. Breath tight and hot in his throat as he let out a sound that was verging on a whine, something he stopped in its tracks by swooping down and kissing Hosea till they were both breathing raggedly into each other’s space.

“Hosea…”

“Oh so _now_ you want something from me?” Hosea laughed again, ever cheerful and teasing. 

“Have you unpacked much?” 

Hosea’s hand crept its way down to Dutch’s cock, giving it a quick squeeze before his thumb was dipping and rubbing up underneath the damp head. Fingers swirling over the tip, watching the way Dutch’s face went blank and his stomach twitched. Swiping the wetness off and then beaming when the two fingers he pushed into Dutch’s mouth were accepted without a single complaint. 

“Not too much, no.” He answered finally, “Anything in particular you want me to go and find?” 

Dutch did whine this time, hips jerking upwards as he dragged his teeth against the skin of Hosea’s fingers. Licking himself off of him and then going to answer his partner.

Hosea interrupted before he could even get a word out, “Ah. Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

The eye roll he got from Dutch had him sniggering, Dutch smacking the flat of his hand against Hosea’s bare thigh beneath him. Wrenching him by the wrist so his hand slipped out of his mouth and he could speak freely.

“Vaseline.” 

Hosea raised an eyebrow, “You think that’s a good idea? Boys could be back anytime now.” 

The hand was back on Dutch’s leaking cock, fist just loose enough that Dutch wouldn’t be about to come from the simple touch but enough that it had him almost glaring at Hosea for it. 

He licked his lips, aware that he could generally get anything out of Hosea with an incredibly easy method. 

He lowered his head, brushing their mouths together but not sealing them completely,

“Please, Hosea.” 

Hosea had a mean streak a mile wide though. 

His fingers leaving Dutch’s cock, a grin springing to his face when it smacked back against Dutch’s belly and he gasped wetly. His hand migrated behind the younger man’s form, trickling his finger’s down the crack of his ass and then cradling his asscheek in his palm. The thumb of his right hand smoothing down Dutch’s hole, feeling it jump underneath it. Rubbing in tiny, tiny circles against it. Hosea knew damn well that if he wanted to he could keep Dutch on edge for a _long_ while just playing with his hole. 

Outside of whatever they deemed fit enough to be their bedroom, Dutch would never admit it but he was greedy for Hosea’s fingers and the way they’d press into him. He would happily seat himself on two of them and ride them until if Hosea smoothed the palm of a hand over his cock he would be shooting messily between them. 

He assumed that that was how Hosea intended to handle him that afternoon. 

“Would you be kind enough to find it then?” Hosea said casually, thumb still daring to dip into Dutch. 

Dutch stood with very little preamble, gathering the blanket around him as he went to search in the bags that had already been brought up. 

Hosea tutted, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Dutch blinked, confused.

“Getting up?”

Hosea’s hands reached for the blanket, pulling it towards him, leaving Dutch stood with one foot on the floor and one knee still propped on the incredibly bare bed. His cheeks taking on a snippet of ruddiness. 

Hosea smiled once more, “Now you may continue.” 

Dutch didn’t miss the way Hosea’s head tilted when he bent down. 

It barely took more than a moment to find what they needed, but to Dutch it certainly felt like an eon stretching on, and he all but dived back to meet Hosea on the bed again. Hosea then took the time to shuffle them around so he was on top of Dutch, Dutch’s thighs bracketing his own delicately and it was so easy to duck his head down. Kissing his partner so softly that it was verging on amusing when he pressed their cocks back together, the jolt of it making Dutch’s teeth clack against his own. 

Luckily, he truly did find that pretty funny. 

“Dutch, you’re a grown man.”

“What’s that s’pose to mean?” 

“You’re acting like a whore.”

Dutch cackled sharply at that, unable to contain it, “You’re the one who’s setting that into motion!”

Hosea’s eyes went soft and he clasped a warm hand on the top of Dutch’s thigh, kissing up under his jaw. Teeth just as sharp as his wit, Dutch thought, leaning his head back and exposing the delicate tendons of his neck. Ripe to be bitten, although, it wouldn't be pertinent to their current living situation to allow that to happen. Despite the fact they would always be referred to as “the boys”, Arthur and John weren’t children anymore and they would most likely never hear the end of it from them if they slipped and were too overt with their...Partnership. 

The older man’s voice was thick and syrupy with intent as he muttered next to Dutch’s ear, 

“Still actin’ like a whore.”

Dutch moaned, the sound choked and low in the back of his throat. Legs slipping open more. An invitation that Hosea greedily took. 

His fingertips found their way easily back to Dutch’s hole, slick with the vaseline and slightly cool as he eased the middle one into Dutch. Waiting barely a second before a second was joining it, he knew that Dutch could take it and Dutch had always remarked at how slim and handsome his hands were. It wasn’t exactly as if he was hurting him going that fast. 

He glanced down, Dutch already beginning to shift his hips around, trying to push the fingers further and further into him. 

If anything, two was never quite enough for him. 

“You’re magnificent.” Hosea’s cut across the silence of the room, save for the sound of Dutch’s hitched breathing and the groaning creak of the bed below them when too much movement was made. He pressed a kiss to Dutch’s waiting, hungry mouth, “So magnificent, my love.” 

His thumb dipping in to rub at Dutch’s perineum, pressing down ever so slightly and Hosea watched the way Dutch’s eyes fluttered shut. The younger man stretching his arms above his head, watching the way that Hosea’s eyes followed the movement. The peaks of his nipples a tight, dusty pink and stark against the paleness of his chest. Presenting himself to Hosea.

He rocked the two fingers into Dutch sharply now, enjoying the way Dutch would press back. Demanding the sensation out of them. Demanding to be fucked. 

Hosea could definitely help with that. 

“What do you need?”

Dutch sighed, his hand skirting over the hotness of his cock, plastered against his stomach still. Precum pooling into the crevices of his belly and hips, pearlescent and Hosea desperately wanted to be in a position to lean down and drag his tongue over his skin. He managed to keep away the need to though, distracting both of them by curling his fingers inside Dutch. Pressing again with, “Dutch. What d’you need?”

“‘Nother finger.” 

“‘A course.” 

Hosea could  _ see  _ the way Dutch’s thighs trembled as three fingers pressed into him, sucking the rest of the breath that was left in his lungs out of him and forcing him to arch his back against him. Groaning and tossing an arm across his eyes, “Hosea.” Teeth grit together enough that he was barely able to get the name out. 

His partner smiled, touching his face reverently and twisting his fingers inside him. Feeling how he would clench around him, so utterly desperate for the way that anything inside him made him feel. It was a surprise that Dutch ever allowed them to switch positions at all. Hosea hadn’t even met a woman who was so overcome by the feeling of being fucked as Dutch. 

Not that he would ever complain about that.

After a good few minutes of watching Dutch struggle to keep himself from shooting against his chest, Hosea’s fingers withdrew. Smearing the left over vaseline onto the hot flesh of his cock and then wiping them unsanctimonious against the blanket, something that Susan would not doubt be absolutely horrified with later when she noticed the tacky fabric but, he could not bring himself to care at that moment.

They both breathed out when Hosea pressed himself into Dutch, hitching one of his legs a little higher against his waist and ignoring the lightning bolt of pain shooting up the right side of his body. He wasn’t quite ready to admit that fucking at age forty six was sometimes a little bit of an effort. Having said that, the reward to be reaped was far too high to care that maybe he’d have to get Dutch to rub his back in a few hours. Really, that was one of the perks of being older than his partner, and growing older in general. 

His hips bumped into Dutch’s ass finally, seated comfortably as he rubbed into the man beneath him. Feeling the way he went tight around him and clasped a large hand onto his shoulder, dragging him down into a messy kiss. Their mouths opened instinctively and Dutch sucked greedily on Hosea’s tongue as soon as he could, attempting to fuck himself on his cock as much as he could with Hosea’s stilled hips resting against his. 

Now, the life they lived was full of mishap, some murder unfortunately, and also the knowledge that privacy was a luxury that they could rarely afford. 

So it didn’t come as a big surprise to them that years of living in tents without doors and no privilege of the ability to knock, John and Arthur’s general procedure was for them to barrel unrestrained into a room like a couple of unruly apes. 

It was their fault if what they found in the room wasn’t something they particularly wanted to see. 

Dutch and Hosea froze as John, seemingly unaware, reported very matter of factly, 

“Arthur wouldn’t even lend me ten bucks to buy a hat that I saw in a shop in the town! He owes me twenty! How is that….Uh-”

“Oh fucking hell.” Was all Arthur managed before he was kicking John in the ass so hard out of the room that there was an audible thud in the small landing area outside of the room. 

-

Hosea left Dutch in the bedroom, his partner fast asleep and draped in a now slightly crusty blanket. Legs splayed out and stomach damp with his own cum. 

It had taken a lot of willpower to drag himself away from him, truly. 

He fixed his suspenders back to their usual settings, straightening his ascot as he descended the stairs, noticing that Miss Grimshaw at some point had found a shabby looking vase and filled it to the brim with a bouquet of wildflowers. She always was very aware and keen to make the places they stayed homely, he would give her that accolade for sure. 

Despite the fact his cheeks were rosy when he spotted him, Arthur tipped his cup of coffee at Hosea, “Glad to know you still have it in you, Pop.” He paused, “Or, well, I guess it was Dutch who had it in him.”

Hosea laughed exceptionally hard at that, clapping a hand on Arthur’s shoulder and squeezing, 

“My God, boy. You are always good entertainment if nothing else.” 

Arthur shoved the hand off his shoulder, feigning insult, “Oh, you be quiet now.”

John was a bit less jovial about the whole thing, sat by himself scrubbing a shirt against the washboard that Susan had no doubt thrust upon him. Hosea nudged him with the toe of his boot, watching as his eyes climbed up to meet his own, face going even redder than Arthur’s when their gazes met. 

“I must apologise, John. Not something any boy should see their parents up to. Maybe we should talk about knocking though…” The hint of amusement in his voice attempting to voice the fact that he wasn’t angry. Or even ashamed, at all. Surely the boy knew by now that it was a slightly odd setup that the gang of them had, especially between himself and Dutch. They were after all outlaws, they were outside of the laws of the land and if one wanted to indulge in a little buggery then who was to stop them. 

John’s shoulders raised in a semi shrug, his hands stilling in their washing of the shirt. He took a moment to decide what to say in response, eyebrows knit together and after a short while he fixed Hosea with a look, 

“Pro’ly seen worse. But I will knock next time, sorry.” 

Hosea gave him a warm pat on the back, “Good to hear.”

John, forever imbued with the wisdom of a teenage boy, followed it up with a statement that Hosea would keep with him for many years to come, “Ain’t nothing too bad to walk in on, I guess. Beats hanging I think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> right so, if u enjoyed that please leave me some kudos bc i love that sh%t and comments im always so so grateful for


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